


Let the Rain

by LGCoffeeAddict



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fault, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:41:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1253239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LGCoffeeAddict/pseuds/LGCoffeeAddict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You had two guns pointed at your head today, El," she whispered. Her voice still had that same hoarse, thready sound that it did in the hospital. It made him want to just wrap her up in his arms and keep anything bad from ever happening to her again. "I just need some time to reassure myself that I didn't pull that trigger, that Gitano didn't."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fall Down

_We both chose each other over the job._ _That can't happen again._

Olivia felt beyond numb, sitting in that hallway. Numb was a feeling she knew well, and this wasn't it. It was like every nerve ending, emotional and physical, had not only stopped working, but had altogether left her body. It was a miracle she was even breathing as she recalled how many times the man sitting beside her had torn her to shreds in just one day.

That gun up against his head, the way he'd already given up on life, the way he wanted _her_ to be the one to kill him. The second they'd reached the hospital with Rebecca, Olivia made a beeline for the ladies' room and violently threw up in the nearest toilet. Twice. Every fiber of her being rejected any possibility of losing Elliot, and Gitano had come terrifyingly close to making that a reality.

Then Elliot had the gall to think she could handle the responsibility of making the "right" decision if there ever was a next time. They were told time and time again that, if the choice was to save a member of the public or to save your partner, always choose the member of the public. That was the right decision, but Olivia's insides rebelled against that. The decision that ended Elliot's life was never, _ever_ going to be the right one.

_You and the job are about the only things I have left. I don't wanna wreck that. I couldn't take it._

Neither could _she_! Olivia stewed in that seat in the hallway long after Elliot left her alone. She couldn't take that loss either, and he fully expected her to if it came to that. He expected her to put the job over him next time. He refused to accept the fact that she would do the _exact_ same thing again and again. She would always, always choose Elliot over the job. She could survive without the job, even if it would be the hardest thing she'd have to do. But the second Elliot died would be the second she did.

She hated herself for that. She _despised_ herself for being so desperately dependent on her partner that though every instinct inside her screamed to run away and get some distance, she steadfastly ignored those instincts and stayed glued to his infuriating, stubborn, rage-prone side. She was supposed to be smarter than that. She was so good about keeping her distance from everyone else in her life. What the fuck was wrong with her that she couldn't do that for Elliot?

She slammed her eyes shut, just trying to force oxygen into her lungs. She needed to stop shaking, but she hadn't been able to stay still since she heard the gun go off in that warehouse. Behind her eyelids the entire scene played out in sickening detail. He was so close to not breathing anymore, and she'd even told Gitano he could kill her, too.

Clawing her way out of the memory, Olivia opened her eyes and realized her knuckles were white from the vice-like grip she had on the edge of her chair. They should be hurting, but no sensation whatsoever registered in her mind. It took a conscious effort to uncurl her fingers, one by one, and move them into her lap.

Elliot didn't die. But she felt like she already has.

* * *

 

It had started raining since she'd been in the hospital. She walked right past the parking lot, not trusting herself to drive when she couldn't even have the presence of mind to zip up her coat. Her apartment was only twenty blocks away anyway. She could walk that.

Elliot's was only ten blocks away in the opposite direction though.

That thought was the first thing that made her feel anything in hours. She felt need. Just to see him, to watch him breathe, to make sure he was alive. Without a second thought, Olivia turned the corner that would take her by his favorite Chinese takeout.

By the time she stood on the steps to his building, she was completely soaked through, but she'd kept the food protected as much as she could. For some reason, keeping that food warm and dry was of the highest importance right then. As long as she could feel the warmth permeating through the bag and her wet shirt on her stomach, she could feel _something_.

The second Elliot opened the door, she could finally feel the air in her lungs. She could feel the water dripping down her neck and the hair stuck on her face. She could feel the way her heart both calmed down and started slamming violently against her ribcage.

"Liv, what are you doing here?" Elliot sounded tired, hoarse, and his face was pale, eyes sunken in. He'd probably thrown up, too.

She let go of her jacket and let the food come into view. "Thought you could use some food." Her voice sounded like his. "Can I come in?"

* * *

 

Elliot could barely register Olivia's presence in the hallway outside his door. His head just wouldn't compute why she was still trying to take care of him when he'd put her through so much in the last week. Hell, in the last two years. Her eyes were black and shining with moisture, more vulnerable than he'd ever seen them as she stood there waiting for his answer.

He stepped to the side, unblinking as she ducked her head and walked past him into his apartment. "You're soaking wet," he observed. It looked like she hadn't even made any effort to keep herself dry.

"Didn't feel like driving," she answered softly. She placed the bag of food on his counter and shrugged out of her jacket before she floundered for a place to put it that wouldn't get water all over his apartment.

Every inch of her clothing was completely soaked, and he could see the shivering as the cold finally settled over her. "There's some sweats in the top drawer of my dresser." He prodded her in the direction of her room, taking her jacket from her hands in the process. "Go change and throw your clothes in the drier. I'll get the food out."

Five minutes later, they were sitting on the barstools at his counter and picking at their food, the only sound in the apartment the rhythmic tumble of the drier. Olivia was almost drowning in his NYPD sweatshirt and had to roll up his sweatpants a few times so that she could walk without tripping, but she looked warmer. Every time he sneaked a glance at her from the corner of his eye, he felt a little warmer himself. It was comforting having her with him, seeing her wearing his sweatshirt. "Liv," he started, staring into his food. "Why did you come here?"

She didn't look up from her food either, but she lowered her hands into her lap as if she could contain whatever she was feeling if only she tried hard enough. It took her a few seconds to speak, but Elliot didn't push her. "You had two guns pointed at your head today, El," she whispered. Her voice still had that same hoarse, thready sound that it did in the hospital. It made him want to just wrap her up in his arms and keep anything bad from ever happening to her again. It was an instinct as powerful as any he had toward protecting his children but on a wholly different level. "I just need some time to reassure myself that I didn't pull that trigger, that Gitano didn't." Elliot finally turned his head fully to see Olivia hunched over and trying to breathe normally. "I needed to know you were still here."

"I'm still here, Liv." His eyes burned but he couldn't blink, couldn't for even a fraction of a second lose sight of his partner. Suddenly, he was right where she was, where he needed to see her breathing just to know she wasn't still lying on the floor of the bus terminal.

Olivia nodded just barely before she straightened with a shake of her head. He could practically hear her berating herself for indulging her insecurities. "I'll be out of your hair once my clothes are dry," she promised and picked up her fork again. She tucked her hair behind her ear and tried to ignore it when his gaze fell to the bandage on her neck, but by the way she blinked blindly at her food instead of eating it he could tell she knew what he was looking at. "I'll be fine, El."

She wanted him to stop watching her. He knew that as firmly as he knew he wouldn't stop as long as he was still alive. He marveled at how differently they'd handled the possibility of losing each other. He'd reacted by getting angry with her for making his heart stop when she fell and her head bounced. He'd lashed out and blamed her for making him feel like the world just came crashing down around him. And she'd reacted by bringing him food just so that she could see him still standing.

His hand moved of its own accord, but when his fingertips brushed across the cut on her neck he felt like he'd stopped breathing. Judging from the sudden tension in Olivia's neck, she had, too. "I thought I was too late," he rasped.

"It's just a scratch, El," Olivia dismissed. For as much as she fussed over him, she never let him worry about her for long. He knew the next words out of her mouth before she even started saying them. "How's your head?"

Elliot let his hand weave into her hair, feeling her scalp for the bump he knew would be there. "Probably about the same as yours. Did you even let them check for a concussion?"

His hands found the bump, and a hiss fell past Olivia's lips without her approval. "What was the point? I wasn't going to be sleeping anytime soon anyway."

Anger bubbled up inside him. He gently turned her head toward his, making her look him in the eyes. "Don't do that," he said fiercely. His hand fell to the side of her neck, his thumb resting on her jaw line. "Don't dismiss yourself so easily. You were just as much at risk this case as I was, and you don't even seem to care. I swear to God, Olivia, if you won't take care of yourself then at least let me fucking do it."

Olivia's dark eyes widened with every word he said, genuine surprise all over her features. He hated how surprised she was that someone was as invested in her wellbeing as she was in his. He hated that she didn't know in her bones that he'd lose whatever shred of sanity he still had if anything happened to her. But a lifetime of building walls and living behind self-imposed boundaries cultivated instincts stronger than steel. "I don't need anyone to take care of me," she insisted almost out of reflex.

"Bullshit," he spat. "You just don't want to admit it." He stood up off the barstool and crowded her as much as he could short of sitting in her lap. "However much you want to make sure I'm still alive, that's how much I need to know you are, too. Hell, I let a _kid_ get killed because I was scared out of my mind that you'd bleed out right in front of me. How do you not get that?"

She was shaking again. Goosebumps bloomed under his fingers, and Elliot watched her eyes dart back and forth over his face, wanting to run but glued to the seat. His thumb started stroking her jaw, trying to soothe the bumps down to no avail. If anything, the trembling seemed to get worse. "And then you tried to tell me it was a mistake," she finally exhaled. Tears pooled in her gaze, threatening to spill over onto his thumb. "You _regretted_ saving me. You called me incompetent, and you stared me straight in the eyes and told me to pull that trigger." Her chest heaved and the tears won. Steady streams tracked down her cheeks and neck, wetting his hand. She was disintegrating right in front of him, and he could do nothing but watch the destruction. Her voice got higher, louder as she finally voiced her biggest fear. "You didn't even _think_ about me, Elliot. What about me? _What about me?_ "

Elliot froze. She'd asked that in the hospital, and he hadn't answered. He'd just told her she couldn't do it again. "Liv…" he started, but now that he'd finally gotten her going there was little he could do to stop her confessions.

"What the hell did you think I was going to do, Elliot?" She stood up, too, basically eliminating any whisper of space between their bodies. His hand, still moist from her tears, fell away from her neck. "Did you think that I'd survive that? That I wouldn't go home and want to eat my own gun because I'd caused your death?" Her words punched him in the gut. He'd been so focused on his own pain that he didn't stop to think she'd felt the same way he did. "Fuck you, Elliot." She was beating on his chest now, half-hearted punches that bounced right off but he let her do it. " _Fuck you_ for making me need you this much and then expecting me to put a bullet in your head."

He finally caught her hands and tugged her into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her shaking body and let her cry into his shoulder. Every tear he felt on his neck felt like a knife in his heart. "I'm so sorry, Liv," he breathed into her hair. "I'm so, so sorry."

He held her for what could have been hours or minutes. But slowly, she let him absorb just a little of her pain, take on at least some of her burden. She let him be the one who held her up, just this once. Her crying stopped gradually, and her breathing had returned to normal as she dug her face into the dip between his neck and his shoulder. The embrace turned from something akin to an apology to something so deeply comforting it bordered on intimate, even sacred. The silence that surrounded them now was calmer, because words wouldn't do what they felt justice. It no longer pressed down on them because they were too afraid their words would shatter something very, very fragile.

"Thank you for being alive," she sighed into his neck. Her arms still trembled a little, but they wrapped around his back and clutched at his shirt like it was a lifeline.

Elliot's throat closed up with the admission that suddenly fought to come out, the admission that went against all his training as a cop, but she was being so open with him. For the first time in what seemed like too long, they were actually _talking_ instead of tiptoeing around each other until he inevitably exploded at her over nothing. She deserved to hear the words that validated her choices today. She deserved to know he was grateful, selfish as he was for being so. "Thank you for not taking the shot."

Olivia swallowed a giant gulp of air and burrowed into his chest like she was trying to crawl right into his skin. He would have let her, given half a chance. But the moment came to a grinding halt when his stomach let out an obnoxiously loud rumble, which Olivia probably felt against her stomach as much as heard it.

The smallest of laughs bubbled out of her as she pulled back to look into his face. Her lips quirked upwards when she took in the embarrassment reddening his cheeks. "I guess that means we should eat before the food gets cold."

* * *

 

Olivia had her appetite back. Once she'd gotten everything that was killing her out of her body and into the open, she felt emptiness only food could fill. She was feeling the things a normal person who was blessedly alive person would feel: her body's demands and the need to satisfy them.

Unfortunately, she mused as she lifted her chicken-laden fork to her mouth, thinking about her body's demands sent her down an entirely different road. One that made her all too conscious of her partner, the one who kept—quite intentionally—bumping elbows with her as he dug into his food. They weren't really talking all that much, but every time he knocked into her, their eyes met just for a second. Those were their conversations, his eyes twinkling and hers rolling at his boyishness. It was comfortable. Wonderfully comfortable.

Until the drier buzzed and effectively broke the spell that had fallen over them. Olivia didn't want her clothes back yet. In fact, part of her wanted to vehemently protest that the drier must be broken because there was no way her clothes would dry that quickly. The idea of going back to her empty, dark apartment made her feel almost as sick as she'd been in the hospital. Her stomach already threatened to reject the food she'd managed to eat thinking about being unable to just look to her left and remind herself that Elliot was still alive.

And once again, she was back in that warehouse, staring Elliot in the eye as he begged, _demanded_ her to take the shot. The numbness—the nervelessness—began creeping in again and she dropped her fork. She couldn't get back into those clothes, not now. She could _feel_ again, and why the hell should she give up feeling just because those damned clothes that had seen her absolute worst moment in her adult life were dry?

"Liv, Liv," Elliot's concerned voice broke through her panicked haze. Her eyes darted up and began to focus on the intensity of his gaze. "You gotta calm down, Liv. You'll make yourself pass out."

She was hyperventilating. Funny, she hadn't even noticed. She still couldn't really tell; her lungs had already gone numb again. But _that_ scared her. She wasn't even back in her clothes yet, and the life was already leaving her body. "I can't leave yet, El," she almost pleaded. "The second I do, I'm going to keep feeling like you're actually on a slab somewhere, and you won't be right next to me to prove me wrong."

Recognition and something else dawned on Elliot's face, and he quickly shook his head. "I don't want you to leave yet, either. Those clothes can stay right where they are until you're ready."

He offered her his hand to squeeze to physically remind her of his warmth. She squeezed for her life, but it wasn't enough. His hand wasn't enough. It _wasn't_. She looked back up at him, desperate for anything else that could make her body understand he was _there_. "El…" her voice cracked.

She finally realized what else she'd seen in his features. It was commiseration. The same panic that gripped her tightened the skin around his eyes. His other hand rubbed up and down her arm, bringing that section back to the living, raising goosebumps hidden by the sleeves of the sweatshirt.

There was no way to tell who had moved first, who had taken that first step off the barstool and tugged the other one toward them. They always moved in sync with each other, and this was no different.

Except it was _so_ different.

Olivia felt everything at once, her body thrumming back to life as it crashed into Elliot's. He slanted his mouth over hers, and the clatter behind her told her she'd knocked over her barstool in her eagerness to pull him closer. Her lungs burned and her heart pounded out a harsh rhythm in counterpoint to the beating she felt building in her abdomen. One of Elliot's hands wove back into her hair and anchored her to him—like she was going anywhere. She felt the way he was careful of the bump on the back of her head, felt his other arm snake around to her back and slip under the sweatshirt.

That touch seared her to the bone, just like his kiss was doing to her brain. The one thing she felt most of all was out of control. She couldn't handle the overload of her senses, but she'd die in the most exquisite torture imaginable. Because that's what his lips, his tongue, even his teeth every once in a while were. His tongue explored her mouth with a reverence she'd only associate with this man when he was in church, coaxing the embarrassingly breathy moan from her throat that made him grip her to him even harder.

 _This_ was knowing he was alive. _This_ was reminding her that she was, too. With every brush of his lips or tug of his hands, her panic receded. His warmth was the best kind of reassurance that existed, and she stubbornly ignored the way her heart was about to explode. If she paused to think on that, not only would this stop, but she'd terrify herself so much that she would hightail it out of the unit. So she let herself go. Her thoughts could go fuck themselves. Tonight, all she wanted to do was _feel_.

And what she felt was Elliot, against her stomach, insistent and slowly grinding his way as close to her as physically possible. Heat shot straight through to her core to the point where she almost came right there in the kitchen, just from knowing he was like that for _her_. His mouth slid over her to worship her jaw as she gasped for air and held onto his shoulders for dear life because her knees sure as well weren't doing a particularly good job at keeping her vertical.

She was so focused on his lips on her neck that she didn't feel how he was pushing her until the wall met her back. And then Elliot stopped being so reverent.

She felt the second his lips started pushing to taste her. He shoved his leg between hers and propped her against the wall so that he could finally let his hands roam her skin. One of them found her breast underneath the sweatshirt—her bra was sitting in the drier with the rest of her clothes—and she arched into him, grinding into his leg and pushing her breast further into his hand. "Fuck, Elliot," she moaned.

A guttural vibration rose from her partner's chest and right into the spot on her neck he'd been so fixated on—right above the cut Gitano'd dealt her. His hand squeezed and Olivia's eyes rolled into the back of her head. "Touch me, Liv," he growled.

She couldn't have been more ready to oblige, her hands releasing his shoulders to work furiously on his buttons. His lips returned to hers, and she felt the material crunch in her hands as she lost herself in his mouth. His hips drove into hers, one hand tracing her hipbone peeking out from underneath the sweatpants and the other massaging, torturing her breast. She tried to be careful with his buttons, she really did. But the second he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, she tugged out of reflex, sending the last two buttons tumbling to the floor.

Her hands were all over him then, tracing every scar, every pucker and dip in his skin. Heat radiated from him and straight into her. He was so solid and real that she broke his kiss so that she could dip down and do a little worshipping of her own on his collarbone. His muscles shifted and tensed under her fingers, and anything she did on his body he responded in kind on hers. But it wasn't enough again. She was like the worst kind of addict. The one taste wasn't enough. She needed more. She needed all of it.

Leaning back, she reached for the hem of her sweatshirt and locked gazes with Elliot. His panting mirrored hers and his hands froze on her body. "Please, Liv," he rasped, want dripping from every syllable. "I need to see you."

She did as he asked, and they were both lost.

* * *

 

Raindrops pattered against the window into Elliot's bedroom. Olivia blinked drowsily in the scattered moonlight that hit her face. A glance at the digital clock on the nightstand told her she'd officially spent the last two hours trying to understand how she ended up with Elliot's arm strewn contentedly across her stomach. She stared out the window and wondered if she would _ever_ get used to the absurdly pleasant pressure of Elliot holding onto her in his sleep.

Just the simple fact that he was making sure he was always touching her, even in his sleep, made her heart, her stomach, and about five other organs leap and melt and flip so much that she was almost nauseous from the magnitude of it all.

The man beside her, breathing slowly and evenly into his pillow, was Elliot. Stabler. _Elliot_ Stabler. Her partner. Her undeniably alive and warm partner. The panic that had come at the thought of him leaving her sight was gone the second his sinful mouth had lowered to her breast. She'd been outside of her own body, feeling all the overwhelmingly amazing things he was doing to her but unable to really process that their need for each other could have massive consequences.

The cold air of the apartment pebbled her skin, and without a second thought she burrowed into her partner's side for his body heat.

It was that absentminded movement that sent her stumbling from the bed. She nearly twisted an ankle in the sheets in her hurry, but somehow Elliot stayed fast asleep. A frown broke out on his face when his hand dropped onto the now vacant mattress.

What had she been _thinking_?

Tears clouded her vision for the hundredth time that day as she all but ran out of his bedroom. As quietly as she could, she yanked her clothes out of the drier and set to pulling them on as fast as humanly possible.

They'd _already_ fucked up a case because they were too close to each other—a kid _died_ because they couldn't picture being without each other without wanting to scream. What the _hell_ was going through her mind that she thought sleeping with her partner was the solution to their complicated relationship?

Images assaulted her brain while she snapped the straps of her bra in place in the middle of Elliot fucking Stabler's hallway. The smug face that lit up Elliot's blue eyes when he made her squeal like a girl half her age. The stormy swirl that darkened those irises to deep indigo when she grabbed his ass and pulled him so close that if they hadn't still been wearing pants he would have been deep inside her. The small crescent-shaped indentations that decorated his back thanks to her. The bone-shaking intensity in his entire being as they crashed together again and again, his eyes on fire as they locked onto hers when he finally came.

Her sweater felt too tight and constricting when she pulled it on, but she suspected that had little to do with the fabric and everything to do with the fact that she could barely breathe. She'd felt so…so _high_ when she and Elliot were tearing into each other with reckless abandon. She hadn't been so aware of her body and senses in her entire life, and the thought of any other sort of existence where Elliot wasn't touching her now seemed like a drab, dull comparison to _real_ living.

Her jeans were stiff. As she jumped up and down to get them to sit right on her hips, a soft sob fell past her lips. If they kept making decisions like they did with Gitano and Ryan Clifford, if they kept down the path they were clearly headed towards, more innocent people would die so that they could satisfy their selfish, irrational need for each other. She couldn't let herself get so comfortable and cozy in his presence that she needed him for something as simple as warmth. Too much comfort, and she'd one day find herself without him and without any ability to cope.

Her jacket was last, and as she shrugged it on and slipped her feet into the shoes by the door, she was shaking again. She leaned her forehead on the wood of the door and let her hand rest on the doorknob for a moment. A moment to remember and file away the worst and best night of her life before she gathered the strength to turn the knob.

"I'm sorry, Elliot."


	2. Any Other World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suck at updating. Writing moods don't often coincide with my free time, unfortunately. This chapter is named after Any Other World by Mika, which I played on repeat while writing this chapter because I'm sobbing thanks to The Good Wife. Enjoy!

Elliot woke up alone in the morning, his alarm blaring in his ear. No, he realized as he sleepily swept one arm across the empty space in his bed, that was his phone, not his alarm. A yawn cracked his jaw when he finally remembered he had to answer to get the ringing to stop. "Stabler."

"Elliot, I know you were supposed to have the day off," came Cragen's sympathetic voice, "but 1PP is riding me to get your DD5s on the Gitano case in by two o'clock today, so I need you to come in and fill yours out. I'll give you the day off tomorrow to make up for it. I know you need the break."

The mention of Gitano instantly woke Elliot, and he was back in the warehouse staring Liv straight in her too-bright eyes as she pointed her gun at his head. Squeezing his eyes shut, he brought the hand that had been searching the bed up to rub between his eyebrows. Liv.

_Liv._

"Elliot?" Cragen asked. "Did you hear me?"

Elliot bolted up in his bed and scanned what he could of the apartment. "Yeah, Cap. I'll be in soon." He hung up probably too quickly, but his place was silent. Empty.

Liv had come over last night.

Liv…they… _fuck_.

Grabbing a pair of boxers from the floor, Elliot padded around his apartment. The dryer door was open, and their takeout containers still sat on the counter. The sweatshirt and sweatpants he'd lent her still lay crumpled on the floor toward his bedroom. Flashes of her skin raced through his mind, of her teeth digging into her lower lip until he freed it for her, of her too bright eyes locking with his in a way that made everything around them stand still.

But she wasn't there anymore, and already Elliot felt the tension building between his shoulder blades.

* * *

Olivia wanted to curl into herself when Elliot sat down at the desk across from her, his gaze insistent on her face, which she kept studiously trained on the paperwork in front of her. He was going to want to ask questions, and there was nothing she wanted less. So she copied her relevant notes with a shaky hand into the Gitano file and tried not to let her trembling be too visible.

"Hey," Elliot rasped, and Olivia felt the breath leave her lungs. She was back against his kitchen wall, writhing in desperate pleasure as he teased her breasts with his teeth and tongue. She closed her eyes and tried to get her breathing under control, but her body remembered every single touch from the night before.

"Hi," she exhaled. Somewhat steady again, she opened her eyes again and resumed writing.

Elliot, after another few seconds of trying in vain to make eye contact with her, finally sighed and grabbed his own file.

* * *

Two hours passed in silence, and Olivia wanted to explode. Every nerve ending in her body screamed for attention. She'd been consistently flushed since Elliot sat down across from her, but as much as her body begged for his touch, she was terrified of going down that road again. They  _couldn't_  go down that road again. It would ruin them, and she wouldn't survive that.

Staring at her now complete DD5 on Gitano only affirmed her decision more. A child died because Elliot couldn't separate his feelings from his job, and another one almost died because  _she_  couldn't. They couldn't be partners anymore.

Pushing back from her desk, she kept her eyes on her file when the motion snapped Elliot's head up. Looking at him would only make her feel guiltier, would make leaving harder. She couldn't do that if she was going to actually make it into Cragen's office. Elliot's gaze burned her skin wherever it fell, even on her back as she deposited the file in the finished pile and knocked on Cragen's door.

As soon as she closed the door, it felt like the room was stuffed with cotton. She could see and hear, but everything was muted as she said the words she knew she couldn't take back.

"I want a new partner."

* * *

Olivia left. Elliot sat in his chair and stared at his new "partner" with a clenched jaw. Blaine was everything an SVU detective shouldn't be. Crass. Brutish. Rude. Insensitive. But most of all, he was a complete jackass. And Elliot was stuck with him because Liv  _left_ .

She left his bed, and the next day she left their partnership. She left  _him_. And she didn't even bother talking to him about any of it. How did that even work? How did she go from panicking when she couldn't see him to just walking out of his life altogether?

Something snapped in his hand. Elliot looked down and let the broken pieces of his pencil roll onto the desk. He just didn't  _get_ it. He couldn't properly wrap his mind around the thought of her being able to leave so easily. That wasn't who they were. They didn't leave each other. Or at least that had been his impression for the last seven years.

Elliot stewed all day, only pushing aside his anger when interviewing people about the case, to whatever extent he could not be angry when dealing with Blaine. He was bound to erupt at some point.

"No wonder your partner dumped you," Blaine spat at his back, stopping Elliot in his tracks.

Fists clenched, Elliot tried to get a rein on himself, but when he closed his eyes he saw Liv laying beside him, fast asleep and peaceful. She  _left_. Blaine had  _no right_  to poke that wound. He swung around and punched him square in the face before he even realized he'd made the decision to.

* * *

Olivia hovered just behind the door to the locker room. She could hear Elliot banging around in front of his locker, and she almost turned around. But she left so that she could save their friendship, not to abandon it. So, with a steeling breath, she opened the door and let herself lean against the doorframe.

Elliot's back was to her as he angrily whipped off his ripped shirt. No matter that it was her decision to come down to check up on him after hearing about the fight, she had no clue what she was going to say to him. How did she start a conversation when he was no doubt infuriated and hurt by her? She stood in silence for those few moments, guiltily appreciating the muscles in his back as he tugged on a new shirt.

When he turned around and looked up, Olivia knew she had a weird smile that basically screamed, "I'm checking you out at this highly inappropriate time," and blurted out the first words that came to mind. "I liked that shirt."

His eyes were darker than normal, emptier. He flipped his collar and started buttoning his shirt. "What are you doing here?" His voice—and his face, for that matter—might as well have been carved from stone.

"I heard what happened between you and Blaine." So apparently, her tactic was just to act as if everything was fine, that she hadn't gone to that warehouse, that she hadn't slept with her partner, that she hadn't left SVU. Inwardly, Olivia was hitting her head against a wall. Acting like she hadn't walked out on him was only going to make him hate her more.

"What can I tell you? He's a prick." Everything about Elliot was just barely restrained rage. His words were quiet, the way the world was quiet before a hurricane. He only just managed to close the locker without denting it, and now  _he_  was the one avoiding eye contact. When he finally did look at her, all the guilt swimming in Olivia's gut rushed to her throat and she ducked her head. She couldn't do this. She shifted on her feet, getting ready to make her escape when footsteps approached her. When she looked up, he was less than a foot away from her, and there was a split-second where she thought he was going to kiss her. But he blinked and his bad-cop interviewing face eliminated any notion of romance. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She couldn't control the way her eyes flitted down to his lips after he asked that question. It should have been obvious, she thought. If she told him before she left, he would have kept her there with a simple word: Stay. Shaking her head slightly, she tried to think of any explanation that would keep him from hating her. "Elliot, we've been partners for seven years, longer than anybody else here." She couldn't look him in the eye the entire time; he'd know she was bullshitting. "We needed a change."

Elliot didn't buy a word of it, but he let his silence eat at her until she talked again. He was using every interrogation trick he had up his sleeve on her, and unfortunately for her, they worked. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I should have talked to you." Her gaze dropped to his lips again.  _But talking to you makes me remember that I've kissed you._ "It's just…" she couldn't find the words.  _Talking to you makes me remember that I had you inside me_. Her breathing hitched.  _That I want that night to happen again, but I also almost killed you that day_.  _I can't separate the two events, El._ Please _understand that._ "It was just too complicated." Great. She wanted to cry now. She'd been doing a lot of that lately.

She felt Elliot take another step toward her, and when she looked up he was all but towering over her, his jaw clenching and loosening again and again. "Complicated," he repeated, his voice a low rumble that she felt in her chest.

"Yeah," she breathed. "Complicated."

"Blaine said you dumped me."

Olivia was so focused on his voice—he'd spoken in that voice that night, before they fell asleep—that it took a second to register what he said. "What?"

"He said you dumped me," he confessed, "so I punched him."

Her eyes snapped to his, which were just a little clearer, a little more Elliot. She started to reach to him with her hand but she retracted it at the last second. How would he react if she touched him? She settled her palm on his shirt above his heart, crumpling it slightly in her grip. "I didn't dump you."

A warm hand enveloped hers, for a second just resting there holding her before removing her hand from his shirt. Elliot's eyes clouded over once more. "It feels like you did."

He released her hand and pushed past her to leave. Olivia couldn't bring herself to move. She could feel her past seven years of stability shattering around her, and it took everything in her power to keep from breaking down right there in the doorway to the locker room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So maybe this is going to be longer than four chapters? I have no idea honestly, but if it keeps going the way my fingers seem to want it to go, it might be a little longer of a ride than I had anticipated. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'd appreciate any and all feedback!


	3. Always in My Head

" _Fuck_ , Elliot," Olivia exhaled when her partner finally,  _finally_  slid inside her. The mattress under her dipped beneath their combined weight, and for a second, Elliot didn't move. He just stayed, buried to the hilt in Olivia, and breathed. Which was more than Olivia could say—he filled her so completely there was no room in her lungs to get any oxygen.

Her eyes fluttered open—when did they close?—when she felt his warm, soft lips on her neck, peppering kisses all over her overheated skin. Everything in her body hummed in contentment. Feeling so stretched and not having to go a moment without touching the man inside and on top of her…hell, she might have even gone so far as to say she was happy. Her nails dug into the tops of his shoulders, having adjusted to Elliot inside her and now  _desperately_  needing to move. "El," she whispered as she shifted under him.

The guttural groan he made when she moved was one of the most delicious sounds she'd ever heard, and suddenly he was thrusting in and out of her with all he had. Olivia, still so sensitive from her first orgasm, quickly felt herself falling again. "Fuck, Liv," he panted, swiping her sweat-matted hair from her face, which was twisted in rapidly building ecstasy. "Come on, Liv. Come for me."

* * *

Olivia jerked awake, alone in her sweat-soaked bed. The first few rays of the sunrise filtered into her room, all but mocking her for being stupid enough to leave the bed in her dreams weeks ago. Rolling over, she buried her face in her pillow and groaned in disappointment. As much as her nights were undisturbed now that she was in Computer Crimes, they now left  _so_  much time and extra brainpower to devote to reliving every fucking second of that night.

Frustration twisted the sheets around her legs as she peeked over her pillow at her digital clock on the nightstand. Five a.m. She didn't have to be at work for another four hours—another "perk" of CPU. So much time for a life—only there was no possibility of her having one. Not so soon after Elliot.

 _Possibly not ever_ , a small, terrified voice whispered in the back of her head.

"Fuck you, Elliot," she huffed into her pillow before pushing herself out of bed. She stripped the embarrassingly soiled sheets and shoved them in her washing machine, throwing in everything she was wearing for good measure. As soon as the tumbling of the laundry echoed through her apartment, she padded back to her room and pulled on running clothes. The fact that this had become an almost daily ritual was almost laughable. At least she'd have no trouble staying in shape even with a mostly desk-based assignment. Elliot sent her on an early bird run every morning to work off each dream, each remembered kiss, groan, bite, thrust…

It was going to be a  _long_  run this morning.

* * *

Elliot couldn't stand still anymore, he noticed. He used to be able to sit for a little while and handle not moving forward in a case with some shred of stoicism, but apparently that was over. Now, he paced and shifted like a caged animal. They weren't getting  _any_ where finding Teddy's abductor. Morales couldn't pull anything from the chat rooms. Their case was circling the drain, and now he couldn't stop prowling around the squad.

"Elliot, Fin," Cragen called from the doorway to his office. His hands were in his pockets as usual.  _He_  seemed to have no trouble remaining still. Elliot wondered how his captain didn't fidget more. This job was frustrating as all hell, and being the captain of such a group as theirs had to be damn near impossible. "Where are we on Teddy's captor?"

"The middle of nowhere," Fin grumbled, tossing down his pen and leaning back in his chair. "Can't trace the chat room users, and our last person of interest is in hospice."

Cragen took a second, almost as if he was bracing himself for shutting down another harebrained argument. "Go up to Computer Crimes. See if Olivia can't help you track these guys."

That name made Elliot completely immobile for the first time in weeks. Everyone had been careful not to mention her name within earshot of him, ever since the throw down with Blaine. He hadn't spoken to her since that day either, not that she hadn't tried. She sent him a text about a week after the locker room to ask if he wanted to grab a cup of coffee, trying to reach out and fix things. It still sat in his Inbox, unanswered.

But  _fuck_  if he didn't miss her.

And so he surprised everyone—including Cragen—by grabbing his coat and making his way to the elevator. "You coming, Fin?"

* * *

Olivia knew the second he walked into her new unit. It had nothing to do with the fact that her desk had a perfect view of the doors and a simple glance up could tell her who walked in the second there was any movement. No, she didn't dare shift her gaze even a centimeter from her screen. It was more of a visceral awareness. Something intuitive she always had with Elliot from her first time on the job with him. The moment his eyes landed on her, she made absolutely sure she looked like she was focusing on her computer screen. Maybe it would buy her time to keep her face from looking too happy to see him.

She may not have succeeded at that part. She's pretty sure when she looked up she was just short of basking in his presence. Fin probably figured it all out just from that one fucking face. "What are you doing here?"

Elliot's face was carefully blank, but Olivia couldn't help but notice the way his eyes seemed to be darting all over her face, drinking her in as much as she was to him. "We need your help," he murmured.

* * *

_What the fuck, Liv?_  Elliot couldn't help thinking to himself as he watched her type away at her computer.  _How do you look even more….how do you look like_ that _when you're sitting at a desk staring at a computer all day?_  When they walked into the unit, Elliot almost had to clear his throat once he saw his partner for the first time in weeks. Nothing obviously had changed about her appearance, but there was this healthy glow in her face that he wouldn't expect from a desk job. He expected her to look a little more Morales-like, with slightly sunken in eyes and forever hunched over her keyboard, maybe even a little resentful about her move.

But she looked like Olivia. An annoyingly refreshed Olivia.

Now if only he could stop staring at her so much before Fin noticed.

"Traces that used to take an entire day now take twenty minutes," Olivia declared, a glimmer of smugness in her voice. She was enjoying herself talking about technology like this. He rarely ever got to see this side of her, and he was with her ninety percent of her waking hours. It was cute.

 _She'd punch you if she heard you call her cute_ , he reminded himself. But he couldn't keep the small smile from coming to his face as he observed, "You're really into this."

Fuck. Fin noticed. Elliot could practically feel the detective's suddenly inquisitive gaze boring into the side of his skull as he maneuvered around to look at Olivia's screen.

* * *

"Computer scams, credit card frauds. I haven't seen blood or tears in weeks." Olivia smiled up at Elliot as he walked around the desk toward her. So maybe she was playing up the contentment a little too much, but CPU  _was_  a nice change of pace, for a little while at least. The thought of staying in this unit forever, though, made her want to retire early.

She practically felt herself preening under Elliot's attention, loving being able to offer help the one time he ever actually asked for it. This wasn't like her at all, and SVU Olivia would probably be somewhere rubbing her eyes in embarrassment. But CPU Olivia had dreams every fucking night about the man standing not six inches behind her, and damn it if that didn't change the game just a little bit.

Part of her was a little disappointed that she managed to trace SunshineGuy's signal so quickly, because the second she gave them the office at Mercy Hospital they were on their way. Elliot dawdled, however, just long enough to swing back around and give her some hope he'd forgiven her in just two words: "See ya."

* * *

Olivia stared at the phone for a good thirty seconds, tapping her fingers nervously on her desk before she finally picked it up and dialed SVU. She technically didn't have to help them anymore. She helped when they asked, and beyond that she wasn't obligated to continue monitoring POIs for them. But...

But if work was the only channel to get through to Elliot and save their friendship then fuck it. She'd put in the extra hours.

She told herself it was still just to save their friendship. She had to keep telling herself that. So that she didn't do what she did when he walked in earlier. The smiling, the ridiculously obvious "I'm very happy with my decision" routine, the way she felt like she'd burst if he'd even accidentally brushed her arm. She had been a teenage girl earlier, and it was mortifying not even an hour after he left. And it sure as hell wasn't the way to fix a platonic— _platonic_ —friendship.

"Stabler."

"Elliot, I got something you'll probably want to see."  _Bad choice of words, Liv_ , she chided herself, flashing back to last month up against his kitchen wall. Hopefully he didn't catch the way her breath stuck in her throat when she stopped speaking.

"I'll be right over."

She barely had to wait five minutes before he walked through the doors, coming to stand just a hair too close behind her as she refilled her coffee cup. "What's up?" he asked, practically bouncing on his toes in urgency. Boy, their case really  _was_ at a standstill. Olivia nodded him to follow her back to her desk and sipped her coffee to hide her smile. Her news would definitely be welcome now.

"I pulled Dr. Lucas's cell phone records," she announced as she took a seat. "Here's a log of all his calls and text messages."

"Without a warrant." Elliot looked down at her dubiously. Sometimes the degree to which he forgot she broke the rules just as often as he did amused her. It was the whole "Saint Olivia" nickname that started floating around a few years ago that cemented her reputation of doing no wrong. Olivia scoffed to herself. Elliot gave himself too much credit if he thought every time they got called into Cragen's office it was his fault.

Some of her scoffing came out in her voice as she raised an eyebrow at him over her shoulder. "Well, I didn't think you'd want me to wait." Turning back to her screen, she felt him give in and lean closer, one hand on the desk and one on the back of her chair, brushing against her back so lightly she could have imagined it. But she didn't imagine the sharp intake of breath she took the second she felt it—here's hoping Elliot didn't notice.  _Control, Liv._

"Look, you know what you need. You want to take a crack at him?" Olivia sent a wary glance in Elliot's direction, not entirely sure why he was inviting her back in. Everything on his face said he was serious, open but he wasn't going to push her if she was still reluctant. Considering her dreams, though, what if enough time hadn't passed? What if she goes back and messes everything up because she's too distracted by…well, by  _Elliot_  to function at a halfway decent capacity?

 _But Teddy's still missing, Liv_.  _Your feelings or attraction or whatever it is with Elliot can't get in the way of finding Teddy and his abductor._  "Let's go."

Before she knew it, she was walking by her old desk, which still sat empty. Guess Elliot hadn't had much luck in the way of finding a new partner. Or maybe he hadn't even let Cragen assign him a new one in hopes that she'd realize the error of her ways.  _No,_  she reminded herself.  _You're too compromised when it comes to Elliot. You'll only end up getting another kid killed because neither of you can figure your shit out around each other_. That was beginning to become a daily mantra.

"I wasn't planning on coming back," Olivia hinted. If Elliot needed a nudge to accept it and let Cragen assign him a new partner, then she'd push him if she had to.

Elliot didn't miss a beat. "It's in your blood."

"That's the problem."

_Or you are._

* * *

God, it felt good having Liv in the interrogation room with him again. Elliot didn't even have to do much, just lean against the wall and chime in every once in a while. He hadn't felt this comfortable in interrogation in weeks, having someone in there with him who would back his play and then take it a step further without even having to ask what the game plan was. Because that's what they did.

Liv was in her element, and if she couldn't see that, Elliot knew he'd lost his partner forever.

Elliot didn't know when exactly he'd decided to try to win Olivia back to SVU…he wasn't even sure he'd forgiven her for cutting and running without even giving him the courtesy of waking him up. But the entire unit hurt without her, not just his dysfunctional habits with transient partners.

"Picture his body, that young, thin, perfect body," Liv's voice had gotten soft and mesmerizing, and Elliot couldn't help but shift against the wall. Before Gitano, he'd only ever known that voice in the context of interrogation or undercover. When she came over, though, there was no way that voice would ever be anything else to him again except a massively inconvenient turn-on.

_"El," she sighed into his neck as he picked her up and wrapped her legs around his waist. The contact made him growl, especially when she rolled her hips instinctively._

_Elliot's fingers dug into her thighs. "Liv," he warned. "If you want me to actually get us to the bed, you gotta stay still."_

_"Or what?" she hummed into his ear and rolled her hips again. A low, rumbling laugh fell past her lips as he slammed her into the closest wall so he could stay standing. "You'll just fuck me right here?"_

He nearly did—but that  _really_  wasn't what he should be thinking about right now. Especially when this idiot who somehow made it through medical school thought  _chloroform_  was voluntary hiding.

* * *

"Are you sure about this, Liv?" Cragen sat behind his desk more than ready to process the paperwork. As happy as she could tell he was that she wanted to come back, Olivia knew Don wouldn't sign off on her return if she wasn't absolutely sure she was ready.

Olivia sent him a small, shaky smile. "I can't really stay away from SVU anyway, even up in Computer Crimes," she said. Shrugging, she found herself repeating Elliot. "It's in my blood."

"Liv, I'm happy to bring you back here, you know that," Cragen started, his sympathetic features steeling themselves for the biggest issue of all, "but you transferred to Computer Crimes because you wanted a new partner." He stood and walked around front to lean on his desk in front of her. "Has that changed?"

Olivia floundered for words. She was here on impulse alone, and to stop to think about her relationship with Elliot would keep her treading water in a unit that left her with too much free time for weeks trying to make a decision. "I…uh…I'm the only one who  _can_  be Elliot's partner, Cap."

Sure. That would sell it.

"True, but can you resolve whatever made you leave in the first place?"

Olivia felt the breath leave her body at his question. She didn't know how to answer that. "Gitano…" She looked down at her lap and squeezed her eyes shut for just a second before continuing, "Gitano made me leave. He made me question my judgment as a detective, and he made me blame it on Elliot. And he did the same thing to Elliot."  _God, nothing's changed though. Am I making a huge mistake?_  Shaking it off, Olivia raised her head to look Don in the eye. "But I'm  _less_  of a detective without Elliot, and he's not as effective without me either." She shrugged again. "We're partners."

Her captain stared at her for a beat, studying her every feature for any hesitation, before he finally let his stoic smile slip onto his face. "I'm glad you're back, Liv."

Relief swept over Olivia as she stood up and nodded. "Me, too."

He walked her out of the office, squeezing her shoulder as she passed him. "It was a tough decision, Olivia, but you made the right call."

"Thank you, Captain." Turning away from Cragen, she caught Elliot hurriedly turning back to his filing cabinet.

"So you did it?" he asked after he closed the drawer. He was back to avoiding looking at her again.

"I did," she affirmed, following him back to their desks, but he half-turned before even reaching halfway.

"Why?"

Was he really asking her that? Olivia did nothing to stop the amused expression from showing on her face. "I didn't have a choice."  _You made sure of that_.

Elliot was actually disappointed with her. His shoulders dropped the second she finished speaking, and he grumbled, "There's always a choice. Morales is a good man."

Wha—

 _Elliot, you're a fucking idiot_.

"You think I ratted him out?" Olivia asked his back.

Elliot stilled, glancing back at her for a second before he shook his head. "No, I know that's not your style."

Well,  _that_  was convincing. "Thanks," she teased, walking past him. For just a second there, it felt like normal. Before Gitano. Maybe she hadn't made a mistake after all.

"What are you doing here?"

When Olivia turned around at her old desk, she finally had Elliot's full attention. He was still hurting; she could see that now that the case was over. Maybe over just what she had done, maybe over Gitano and Ryan, hell, maybe even still over Kathy. But she'd try to make it up to him somehow—they'd get over the hump, eventually. That in mind, she felt her lips quirk upwards just slightly when she told him, "I work here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that last paragraph sounds like an end, but like hell am I ever going to end a fic on “just friends.” I wanted this to be more than just taking us through Web, but unfortunately, Web is packed with shit to write about. Soon (I hope!), we’ll get to the delicious awkward stage and oooh I can’t wait to see what my fingers write either because I honestly have no clue what’s coming next. Please review!


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